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Where Data & Business Processes Converge

by ADAM BRUNS

When it comes to a growth economy, the name of the game these days is IT, ICT or the IoT— even in an industrial plant in the countryside. But cities especially are identified with the high-tech economy and all its permutations: smart infrastructure, ubiquitous social media, a rich broadband environment, e-mobility and digital media, to name a few.

The broadband factor and the low latency that comes with it are important to a lot more than just data centers, but those facilities’ location trends can be an indicator. Thus, it’s no surprise to see Washington, D.C.; Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth — three perennial hubs of data center activity — atop the 2017 World’s Most Competitive Cities North American rankings (siteselection.com/cc/wmcc/2017).

Where is Silicon Valley? First, it’s not one metro area, but many. And despite being the anchor location for so many of the world’s leading tech firms, the region is not necessarily seeing a lot of locations and expansions by those firms (Apple’s new “spaceship” HQ notwithstanding). The same could be said for the finance and tech capitals of Toronto and New York: Competitive by dint of reputation and decades of build-up, but not by the physical facility location and expansion yardstick used by this report.

The connective infrastructure theme carries over to Berlin, London and Dublin atop Western Europe’s rankings. The trend continues in the Asia Pacific, where Singapore tops the charts, followed by four Indian metropolises known for their IT prowess, led by Hyderabad.

Many of those highly connected cities also happen to be country capitals, parlaying the infrastructure of national security into regional economic security. Thus we see Cairo, Lagos and Johannesburg the most competitive in the Middle East and Africa; Prague and Budapest in Eastern Europe; and Mexico City, Lima and Bogotá in Latin America (No. 1 São Paulo being the exception to the rule, due to Brazil’s utopian purpose-built city of Brasilia fulfilling the role of capital since 1960).

Whether they’re seats of government or not, the IT capitals of tomorrow know that filling seats with young and capable talent is the true name of the game. Explore these cities and the others on your company’s shortlist to see just how their human infrastructure aligns with their high-tech equivalent.

2017 World’s Most Competitive Cities: ICT

North America

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV, USA

Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA, USA

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX, USA

Raleigh, NC, USA

Austin-Round Rock, TX, USA

Latin America & the Caribbean

São Paulo, Brazil

Mexico City, Mexico

Lima, Peru

Bogotá, Colombia

San José-Heredia, Costa Rica

Africa & the Middle East

Cairo, Egypt

Lagos, Nigeria

Johannesburg, South Africa

Abu Dhabi, UAE

Cape Town, South Africa

Western Europe

Berlin-Brandenburg, Germany

London, UK

Dublin, Ireland

Barcelona, Spain

Munich, Germany

Eastern Europe & Central Asia

Prague, Czech Republic

Budapest, Hungary

Krakow, Poland

Wroclaw, Poland

Moscow, Russia

Asia Pacific

Singapore

Hyderabad, India

Bengaluru, India

Pune, India

Delhi National Capital Region, India

Source: 2017 World’s Most Competitive Cities Report

Adam BrunsManaging Editor of Site Selection magazine

Adam Bruns has served as managing editor of Site Selection magazine since February 2002. In the course of reporting hundreds of stories for Site Selection, Adam has visited companies and communities around the globe. A St. Louis native who grew up in the Kansas City suburbs, Adam is a 1986 alumnus of Knox College, and resided in Chicago; Midcoast Maine; Savannah, Georgia; and Lexington, Kentucky, before settling in the Greater Atlanta community of Peachtree Corners, where he lives with his wife and daughter.